This unique digital resource, quite possibly the largest eBook in existence, chronicles generation-by-generation lines of descent from an ancient French castle directly to a huge number of Americans, including many who are showcased at the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled integrated resources to Congress and the American people. The Library seeks to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its collections, which bring to bear the world’s knowledge in almost all of the world’s languages and America’s private sector intellectual and cultural creativity in almost all formats.

Millisecond will be equally dividing this donation between four of the library’s key focus areas. They are

1. Acquire rare and unique items

Assist in building the national collection, adding unique and highly sought after materials to the Library’s holdings.

2. Exhibitions and Educational Programs

Support innovative exhibitions, digital outreach, publications and a wide range of educational programming designed to make the Library’s collections more accessible than ever!

3. Preserve and protect collections for future generations

Support key programs and activities focused on the preservation of rare and unique archival materials and collections.

4. Veterans History Project

Every veteran has his or her own war, and each is custodian of unique stories and memories. Support the Library’s efforts to preserve their legacy with the gathering, processing, preservation, and access to riveting oral histories and personal documents collected from veterans from all wars.

Could it really be true, as I believe, that at least one billion living people, including most Americans, are descended from the builder of this medieval castle?

Could it also be true, as I believe, that if you have any European ancestry within the last four centuries, you almost certainly have parts of your own early family heritage chronicled in this digital resource?

This digital resource download contains exciting and personally enriching discoveries that could cost you thousands of dollars in time and expenses to find using traditional resources.

Imagine what it might mean to your children and grandchildren if you could show them they really do have family ties to the founding of America and the American Revolution, knights and ancient warriors, nobility and royalty, or even a castle that they can stay in.

Happy New Years America, and a special thank you to the Library of Congress for your efforts to preserve and pass along our inspirational heritage.

It’s quicker and makes so much more sense to see it instead of read about it. There are more than a dozen short videos via the links below. They range from how-to vidoes, to visions of the future. Please enjoy.

That’s exactly what Bruce Harrison, the mastermind behind Family Forest®, would have thought before he spent tens of thousands of hours questing through the nooks and crannies of recorded history, filtering and distilling the knowledge that was assembled by experts, and digitally-indexing the results into an amazingly interconnected network of ancestral pathways that can now be explored visually.

The attached chart is a small example of the answers the Family Forest® can generate. Here’s what you will find: The first column is 21 people. The second column shows their connection to the Oscars, and the third column shows their role. The next four columns show the computer-generated relationships of the 21 people in the first column to other people.

The fifth column is Seth MacFarlane, Host of the 85th Academy Awards. The next column is to the 8th Earl of Carnarvon, the present Lord of Highclere Castle, which is the setting for PBS’ enormously popular series Downton Abbey.

Highclere Castle is also the setting for “Lady Almina And The Real Downton Abbey”, a present-day New York Times best-seller written by the 8th and current Countess of Carnarvon. The 8th Earl of Carnarvon has extensive early Colonial American ancestry, which makes him a single-digit cousin to many millions of Downton Abbey fans. Almost half of the people in the column are his single-digit cousins.

The following column is to the founder of Briquebec Castle.“This one is the most fascinating to me,” says Harrison, “because, according to the recorded history mapped out in the Family Forest®, it is one of my own ancestral homes.” And not only does Briquebec Castle have Knights Templar history (remember the “Da Vinci Code”?), but it is possible to book a stay at the castle tonight, and it is the focal point of what may be the world’s largest eBook. In addition to Briquebec being an ancestral home to at least 20 of the 21 people in column one, it is also an ancestral home of the 8th Earl of Carnarvon, owner of Highclere Castle, and the Harbaugh brothers.

And speaking of the Harbaugh brothers, the last column is to the two of them who will be making history by dueling in Super Bowl XLVII this coming Sunday, Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh.

What do the 85th Academy Awards, PBS’ Downton Abbey, Knights Templar, and Super Bowl XLVII have in common?

They are all connected to each other (and consequently to millions of fans), through generation-by-generation family ties in the Family Forest®.

Sounds impossible?

That’s exactly what I would have thought, before I spent tens of thousands of hours questing through the nooks and crannies of recorded history, filtering and distilling the knowledge that was assembled by experts, and digitally-indexing the results into an amazingly interconnected network of ancestral pathways that can now be explored visually.

The attached chart is a small example of the answers the Family Forest®can generate. Here’s what you will find.

The first column is 21 people. The second column shows their connection to the Oscars, and the third column shows their role.

The next four columns show the computer-generated relationships of the 21 people in the first column to other people.

The 8th Earl of Carnarvon has extensive early Colonial American ancestry, which makes him a single-digit cousin to many millions of Downton Abbey fans. Almost half of the people in the column are his single-digit cousins.

The following column is to the founder of Briquebec Castle. This one is the most fascinating to me because, according to the recorded history mapped outin the Family Forest®, it is one of my own ancestral homes.

And not only does Briquebec Castle have Knights Templar history (remember the Da Vinci Code?), but it is possible to book a stay at the castle tonight, and it is the focal point of what may be the world’s largest eBook. In addition to Briquebec being an ancestral home to at least 20 of the 21 people in column one, it is also an ancestral home of the 8thEarl of Carnarvon, owner of Highclere Castle, and the Harbaugh brothers.

Our research and development leads to the estimation that
quite possibly one in six people alive today have ancestral pathways,
that lead to the person who built the castle.

Today, those descendants of Baron Anslech Turstain of Briquebec have the opportunity to actually stay in their ancestral castle.

The Family Forest® can show maps of the generation-by-generation lines of descent from the Baron leading to a long list of many well-known people It also shows those lines of descent leading to surnames ranging from Adams and Davis and Jones and Smith, to Achegma and Poniatowski and Schoff and Zirngiebel.

Briquebec/Bricquebec Castle is now high on my list of places
I must visit. Until recently, I had no idea that any of my ancestors lived in
castles, and I’ll bet that most of the Baron’s descendants who have toured the
castle in the last century had no idea that they were actually visiting one of their own ancestral homes.